My name is Ryan Jardine, I’m 19 from Kelloholm and I’m an identical twin (people usually find that interesting). I love photography and I love music, so music photography is perfect for me. Going to a gig and taking photos would be a perfect way to spend a night for me. I’m also trying to do more band promo shoots, I’ve got a couple under my belt and would love to continue doing it. Though I’ve only really been doing photography for a couple of years I’m really proud of my music photography portfolio, as well as my other photography work too.
During my last year of school they decided to try and run a photography course for the first time. It was a pretty simple course and let pupils go out with a camera and do what they want, I had a lot of fun experimenting and I found out I was pretty good with a camera. So I decided to apply for the HNC photography at Dumfries College and then the following year the HND. Going into this course I had no idea what RAW was, how to work CS6 and the studio was very intimidating for the first couple of weeks. I never imagined I would leave college with the amount of skills and knowledge I learned over those two short years. So I left college with my HND and now I’m a photographer looking for work.
My favourite thing to shoot is music, I’ve been to hundreds of gigs and seen a lot of amazing bands. I’ve photographed a lot of bands from around Dumfries and Galloway at The Venue ranging in different genres and age groups. One of my favourite bands from Dumfries is ‘Finding Albert’ I’ve had the chance to shoot them a couple of times now and they just keep getting better and better, this year I will have the pleasure of seeing them at this years Wickerman. This will be my second year going to The Wickerman Festival, last year I won a photography competition and received a photo pass to photograph the whole weekend, but this year I applied for myself and managed to get myself a Saturday photo pass. So if you see me there you should ask for a photo! I also had the chance to photograph Youth Beatz last year and that was a pretty fun experience. My favourite local music festival is X Fest held at Sanquhar, its only been running for two years and I was able to photograph both years.I got the chance to photograph two of my favourite bands(Vukovi and Altered Sky)right at my doorstep.
As well as shooting a lot of music in Dumfries I also love going to Glasgow for gigs, I’ve not been able to get a pass yet for the bigger venues like the O2 Academy, ABC and The Hyrdo but the smaller venues are better and they are brilliant to take photos in. I like venues such as the Oran Mor, The Audio and Ivory Blacks. My life goal is to take a photo of Jack White, he is playing at The Hyrdo in November, so I hope I can make this happen.
You should support your local music scene and go to gigs, maybe even try and take some photos at a couple. Some local unsigned bands are ten times better than what you hear in the charts (without pointing any fingers in one direction).
I’m still only young so hopefully I can keep shooting music/bands and work my way towards the bigger venues and musicians, but bigger is not always better because I’ve loved shooting in the smaller venues with a lot of different bands so they have set the bar really high for all the other bands out there.
Equiptment:
- I use my Canon 70D with my 18-135 lens which is perfect for what I do.
- I’ve got Lightroom on my laptop, compared to CS6 is pretty basic but I like to use it.
- I’ve also got my own little 3 flash head lighting setup for when I need it
Tips:
I will try and give a few tips (well i think they are useful anyway)
- Just go to any gig you can and take photos, you can’t research how to do you just have to go out and try it.
- Always be aware of your surroundings, because you don’t want to be caught off guard in a mosh pit (but you might get a cool photo out of it though)
- Timing and composition is probably the most important thing, one second could change everything and be the difference between the best photo in the world and a blank screen.
I’m still learning myself so I don’t have that many tips, I just go out and take photos.
My website: www.jardinephotography.weebly.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JardinePhotographyy
Instagram: JardinePhotoo
